Bombay HC stays special court FIR order against ex-Sebi chief Madhabi Puri Buch, 5 others

The high Court bench noted that the order was passed mechanically without going into the details and also without attributing any specific role to the accused.

The Bombay high court on Tuesday put a four-week stay on a special court's order which directed an FIR against former SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials.

Former Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch.(PTI file photo)

This was because the single high court bench of Justice Shivkumar Dige noted that the order was passed mechanically without going into the details and also without attributing any specific role to the accused, according to a report by news agency PTI.

“Hence, the order is stayed till next date,” the HC said. “Four weeks time is given to the complainant in the case (Sapan Shrivastava) to file his affidavit in reply to the petitions.”

All of this is regarding an order passed by a special court directing the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to register an FIR on the accused, due to an alleged fraud committed in 1994 while listing a company on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The accused included Buch, three current whole-time SEBI directors - Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney, as well as two BSE officials including Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Ramamurthy and former chairman and public interest director Pramod Agarwal.

The special court's order was based on a complaint filed by Sapan Shrivastava, a media reporter, who had sought an investigation into the alleged offences which involve large scale financial fraud, regulatory violations and corruption, according to the report.

However, the accused parties had filed for pleas seeking the order to be quashed, stating that the order was illegal and arbitrary.